Mycroft and Anthea
by StArBarD
Summary: What it says on the label. Short little snapshots of the relationship between a Minor Government Official and his Personal assistant. Warning: There will be cake.
1. Irrational Musings

Anthea was sitting pretty.

Up until the point Mycroft spotted her at her desk, he had not realized that the term, generally used to indicate a person's economic and monetary security, could have a meaning beyond its colloquial adaptation.

But as he rested his lips against his knuckles, allowing his labored head to sag under the crushing weight of the day's political gravity, he realized that the phrase's original meaning could still apply.

Her posture, unlike his own at the moment, was impeccable. Her spine was ramrod straight. Her arms were spread gracefully across the small gap between the edge of her desk and the keyboard and her fingers danced, clicking a dizzying staccato rhythm. He had never seen anything as elegant as the way her legs bent beneath the desk, coming to prim points at her black pumps. She was sitting very prettily. Almost posh.

She was so still. A machine, a statue, a mannequin meant to impersonate the perfect PA. Her roving eyes seemed so mechanical, her breathing was so structured and methodic.

"_Is this life?"_ he foolishly caught himself musing, "_Is this biological machine, built of the same components that are mass produced in every being of its species alive, or just fooled into a false consciousness?"_

Suddenly, the spell broke and she turned, breaking her monotonous motions and flushing with a rosy hue. The sun, which fell in ribbons from the high gothic windows behind her twirled its golden fingers through her ebony hair.

She smiled, flashing briefly a row of perfect pearls set in red velvet.

His own lips jerked involuntarily in a poor imitation.

She nodded and dove back into her work. He ducked shamefully back into his.

He denied the fluttering of his own life-giving organ, just as he surely knew she would deny the nervous palpitations of hers. He hoped he wasn't being to presumptuous in assuming she too felt the taboo emotions so commonly attributed to tragedy-bound proletariat dramas on the telly, namely that scourge of their generation called love.

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**So when I'm bored, I like to write little tidbits for Mycroft. Just as a distraction for my usual stories. I figured I might as well put them into a story once and for all. The chapters are not exactly linked chronologically, but they all take place in the same universe. I don't think I wrote this to be a love story, but upon re-reading it... I'm not sure anymore. Use your own judgment as the relationship matures.**


	2. A Late Night's Work

Work was a ghost. It hung over his mind like a thin grey curtain, choking him with the dust of one thousand years of blood and conflict, the history of a depraved humanity starving for more victims. The past could not be allowed to die, no. It needed more wars, more violence. It festered in the hearts and minds of people who otherwise had no connection to it, simply to take more lives and add them to the never yielding slew of the martyrs, the innocent dead and the thoughts that haunted his nights.

The Work followed him home. It locked the door to his bedroom and opened his laptop on his desk and glared at him imperiously until he relented and allowed it to take him over and wash away the human parts of him that managed to hold him back.

He needed no sleep. Not when a three hundred year old conflict threatened to erupt into a civil war. He could survive without nourishment; he felt almost guilty eating or drinking while British soldiers were prisoners, stranded in the center of a conflict that he, through herculean efforts, could control.

When his country needed him, he could not afford to be mortal.

That is why it came as such a shock when the silver platter clattered to a rest beside his elbow, almost as if it had been spirited there by magic.

His eyes shot up and caught the puffy brown orbs of his assistant, streaked with blood from staring at her white computer screen for to many hours. Eyes that probably mirrored his own in their haggard weariness.

He glanced down at the tray which was heavy with a fat teapot, steaming with a delicate allure. Two petite cups waited patiently to be filled. A simple sandwich lounged across a white platter, stuffed with meat and cheese and a green leafy vegetable that wasn't immediately identifiable.

His body rebelled against his mind. Every fiber of his being pulled him towards the plain meal, begging him to fortify himself with the precious sustenance.

He looked up at his assistant morosely. She turned on his desk lamp.

"You need to look away from the screen for a while. Otherwise you'll end up with another migraine," she merely stated gesturing at the meal, but making no move towards pouring the tea. If she tried to make him eat by preparing his tea for him in anticipation of his cooperation, he might become spooked and refuse to eat entirely.

Mycroft blinked, willing the food to disappear. When it didn't, he swallowed thickly and carefully let his fingers curl around the handle of the teapot. The amber liquid seemed to erupt in a jet from the spout. He felt himself quite fanciful, as he diluted the tea with a rich cream and imagined he was preparing to drink ambrosia straight from a golden well.

Anthea waited patiently for him to fill her cup, which he did as almost an afterthought. She calmly watched him pour his own cup, noting how he hungrily lingered over the sandwich with forlorn fingers.

Mycroft held himself in check as long as possible, sipping his tea and passionately swishing it around with his tongue, trying not to gulp it and burn his mouth, as he desperately wished to do. He marveled at how the simple, tasteful tea seemed to warm him, and also awaken his ravenous hunger.

His assistant finished her tea and left the cup on the tray, returning to her little desk with her own computer and beginning her work with renewed vigor.

Once she was gone Mycroft indulged, shoving the sandwich into his face and swallowing enormous chunks of bread without chewing. The whole thing was gone in under one minute, much to his shame.

She returned for the tray a few minutes later, satisfied that she had given her boss enough time. He smiled in appreciation and she smiled a little _'you're welcome'_.

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** Mycroft headcannonpalooza was an alternate title for this story. Feel free to leave your own headcannons. It's nice to have so many buzzing around. **

**BTW: Regarding The Empty Hearse: I have seen it, but I will not spoil. Nothing in this story is a spoiler. Do not leave spoilers in reviews like little fanfiction IEDs. These are just the ramblings from my own brain. The characters belong to Moffatniss and ACD. **


	3. Piano Man

It was a strange thing, that piano. It was of excellent quality. Deep swirls of black wood stood out against the monotonous beige of the walls and the solidity it lent a room filled with nothing more demanding than a few arm chairs and some packed bookshelves was startling. It seemed to have no other purpose besides adding an air of respectability to a disused room.

It had apparently been swathed in a crocheted doily and forgotten. Only the maid who cleaned that room had any contact with the old marvelous thing.

Oh, it had caught Anthea's eye from time to time, but she had almost written it off as another useless piece of bric-a-brac Mycroft had sitting around a house that was much too large for him.

He had filled each room with expensive, useless things that he paid other people to worry about and clean for him. To all appearances he would seem to be a busy bodied collector of rare, fine things. However he lost no love over his petty objects. She suspected he would not even bat an eyelash if the maid scuttled out with one of his antique vases.

The piano was different though, and for the longest time she had no clue as to why.

Until one night, when the lilting, discordant strains of a melody assaulted her thoughts while she was deep in contemplation in the study; her office away from the office.

It did not take her more than a moment to realize what it was, so she slipped off her shoes and ran, barefoot and silent, through the halls of her home away from home.

The door was open a crack, bleeding gold into a black hallway. It practically begged her to creep up and peer inside at the secrets it held.

Mycroft sat like a statue. His back was crisp and straight. His head was bowed reverently over the keys as his hands made several deliberate stabs at a few mellow notes.

_His hands._

They were frightening in their deliberation, like large pale spiders expertly dancing across the ivory keys. They darted back and forth spastically. They danced lightly, or crashed with tremendous strength into a mighty crescendo.

Then, at the height of the music's ecstasy, the tempo slowed to a crawling murmur and faded soothingly into a gentle silence.

"I didn't hear you come in," Mycroft said crisply, not turning to acknowledge her in the least.

"I did not know you could play, sir."

Mycroft did not look at her. He merely patted the bench beside himself and ushered her to join him.

She sat with him shoulder to shoulder and watched his ghostly fingers resurrect Bach with rapturous ease until well into the early night, until the large windows that flanked them on either side were peppered with glittering stars.


End file.
